-by Madeleine Dahl, RA Intern

After BRAIN WAVES’ opening last night, I perused through the many zines of the collection and picked out a few that embodied my personal affection for and interest in zines. I began reading zines in high school and have loved them ever since, so I was excited to see a big collection find a home in Recession Art.

First up is “Womanimalistic #1″ by C. Paquita. I love this sine for its fusion of the personal, general, and random. For instance, there are pages dedicated to the frustrations of love and breakups between lovers and their beloved without dwelling in the trauma of an ending relationship. The pages quickly shift to a list of pet peeves (which one would be hard pressed to disagree with) and an open-call for a queen bee from other bee-keepers. A larger section of the zine is dedicated to calling punk medical myths while keeping the advice DIY. For example,  she makes it clear that “hashbrowns are not the best means to pull an infection out of your body” and that, as much as we’d all like it, “beer is not an antibiotic.” She then explains more useful DIY techniques for self-care. I really appreciate this zine because of its personality and spunk. And at $5, who can’t get down with that?

In the realm of socially-related zines, I think “The Worst #2,” a compilation zine organized by Kathleen McIntyre, is a genuine representation of how the personal can be linked to the larger issues within a society. “The Worst #2″ explores experiences of grief and loss and how we grapple with our encounters with loss, absence, and memory. The writing ranges from explanatory to chillingly relatable to transcendent. While the pieces pertain to grief and loss in a variety of forms and relationships, it is clear this zine acts as a calm space for a meditation on loss and the complex processes of grieving. Definitely worth reading and potentially owning.

Some of my favorite zines are more visually focused and less driven by the written word. Such is the case with “Death Mirror,” a compilation zine made by Nina Hartmann. The images of this large-sized zine evoke restlessness, frustration, and mystery. My favorite visual moment in this zine is an ink drawing: renderings of women meld into a back drop of a desert-like setting. There are knives, skulls, and little eyes filling the negative space, leading your eyes from one figure to the next. One of these figures’ body lunges away from the page while her eyes look at you confrontationly, almost saying “catch me if you can.” The figures, random shapes and objects swirl in an eye-tricking blend creating images within images. I think “Death Mirror” is an intriguing concoction of visual media that stimulates both the eyes and brain.

Come visit BRAIN WAVES at Recession Art, located at 9 Clinton St., New York, NY.